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Showing posts with label American values. Show all posts
Showing posts with label American values. Show all posts

Wednesday, March 23, 2011

The assault of anti-Americanism in Latin America

By Rebecca Theodore


Amidst a surge of anti-American sentiment in Latin America, the US now begins to feel the billowing crest of the flood as it has reached a particularly high peak. Far from the backed up dams, tidal waves still break away in some kind of slaughter and just when it is thought that they have impounded it safe, let alone behind new barrier walls, China accompanies the EU in positioning itself to supply its ever growing oil thirst with Latin American oil at the expense of the United States. To state it simply, America has lost control of Latin America. The surge cannot be contained.

Rebecca Theodore was born on the north coast of the Caribbean island of Dominica and resides in Toronto, Canada. A national security and political columnist, she holds a BA and MA in Philosophy. She can be reached at rebethd@aim.comWhile French scholars imply that anti-Americanism is only fully justified if it implies systematic opposition, a sort of allergic reaction to America as a whole, US political scientists on the other hand view anti-Americanism as a term that cannot be isolated as a consistent phenomenon. Whatever the implication or the precise definition of what the sentiment entails, it is certain that Latin American states are presently demonstrating their inexorable critical impulses toward American social, economic, and political institutions, traditions, and values.

It is the contention of many that anti Americanism in Latin America stemmed from imperialism and globalization and from economic and social frustrations perpetrated by the US. However, it is not without its advantages as anti-Americanism serves the goals of opportunistic politicians and organizations as well.

While Americans remain focused on events in the Middle East, the EU has been working zealously to establish itself as the top trading partner and investor in Latin America, taking advantage of the region’s economic and political weakness. The role that the cessation of the Cold War played to rid the church in Latin America of the liberalism that had penetrated it under Communist influence is now uniting it in commerce and trade. Dominated by the single universal religion of Roman Catholicism, the EU and Latin America are more than just a trade duo. They are a religious, commercial and political partnership.

It cannot be disputed that the EU and China are creating a dominant cross-Atlantic power bloc in Latin America linked by trade, mutual economic interest, and social, political and religious affinity. With plans of building an oil refinery in Venezuela and implementation of ways to secure a way to economically ship Venezuelan oil across the Pacific to its own shores, China’s dream of building a 138-mile-long railway across Colombia from the Gulf of Uraba on the Atlantic coast to the port of Cupica on the Pacific coast will see large shipments of Venezuelan crude and Colombian coal to China.

This is the new technology that all eyes in America and the world should be focused on. The completion of this railroad already being hailed as a land-based Panama Canal could transform the oil politics of Latin America overnight, making China a prime recipient of this oil. Hence, America walks blindly into a situation where 10 percent of its oil imports are being redirected to Asia due to a lack of influence over the Panama Canal and Colombian railways.

Moreover, with silver from Mexico and Peru, tin from Bolivia and iron ore from Venezuela and Brazil, steady supplies of raw materials which Latin America readily provides in abundance, South and Latin America is an eye-catching mélange for resource-hungry Europeans and Chinese. Unfortunately, President Obama’s visit comes a little too late, for the waters keep rising and the rains continue in unrelenting fury.

According to recent published reports, European Union trade with Latin America is at an all -time high. With the Wiki Leaks disclosure that the United States now considers the Latin American Mercosur trade bloc an anti-American organization, Mercosur gradually transforms from an imperfect customs union to a more obstructive and anti-American organization. The EU is currently Mercosur’s main trading partner.

With German corporate giants such as Krupp, Siemens, Bayer, Volkswagen, I.G. Farben and Deutsche Bank steadily becoming household names across the Central American isthmus using the cheap labour force to create competition for the US, and with an established office in Cuba, right on the back doorstep of the US, the EU armed in its Machiavellian ambition phases its infiltration of Latin America as an economically unified, politically stable Latino bloc necessary to ensure constant delivery of goods and services.

It is clear that the United States is left out in the chilling cold waters of this torrential flood as Latin America merges with Europe and China and begins calling the shots in world commerce.

March 23, 2011

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